Obi Became Anti-Democratic After 2023 Election - LP Chieftain

 By Imoleayo Oyedeyi

The spokesperson for the Julius Abure’s bloc of the Labour Party, Obiora Ifoh, speaks with IMOLEAYO OYEDEYI, on the defection of the party’s 2023 presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to the African Democratic Congress

You recently said the Labour Party regretted presenting Peter Obi as its presidential candidate in 2023 following his defection to the ADC. Considering the nationwide visibility and electoral relevance he brought to the party, on what basis does the party now describe his candidature as a regret?

I am not sure I ever said we regretted fielding Obi in 2023, because at that time, we assumed he was the best candidate because he passed some of our qualification standards. And he appeared to us as somebody that would understand the politics of social democracy, equal opportunity, and justice, because that was our main emphasis in choosing all our candidates. Everything we campaigned for was according to that vision.

Subsequently, what we saw from him was not what we expected. He became anti-democratic in the sense that he wanted us to follow routes that are not democratic at all. That was the point of departure from him, and the rest is history. We don’t want to be talking about the past. We are talking about the present and the future.

What specific actions did Obi take that are considered inconsistent with the LP’s principles and values?

We expected that after the election and the court cases, as a leader that he was, Obi ought to begin to work towards improving on the six million votes that we got, by way of doing a postmortem of what happened and bringing everybody on board; appreciate the leadership that worked with him, that went through Sambisa, all nooks and crannies of this nation to campaign for him. We stood by him during the court matter, refused every offer here and there. We refused to budge, and we supported him.

Only for him to, after a few months, come back and say that our executive should leave. We asked him why our executive should leave office when we were elected, and he even supported the convention. And before you know it, he mobilised some members of the National Assembly that were loyal to him, and the Abia State Governor to remove us by all means.

The party’s constitution stated how somebody should be removed from office, but he didn’t have the patience to wait until our tenure elapsed. So, are those not enough reasons to tag him undemocratic? These are our reasons.

However, there are allegations that the party’s fallout with Obi stemmed from his refusal to give money to the LP’s executives. How do you respond to this claim?

I am hearing that for the first time. Nobody has ever accused us of making a demand from Obi. And of course, he would not even give. When the election was going on, he gave nothing. I’m sure you remember that mantra: no shishi, Obi no dey give shishi. Even during the presidential campaign, he managed his own funds. I’m sure you read it everywhere, with people like Aisha and the rest of them.

The party was not part of his campaign management or the finance of the campaign, and we didn’t bother about that. Everything that was supposed to get to the party, he didn’t give us. He didn’t even donate a bicycle, not a single car. So, we were not interested in all those things. We wanted a Nigeria that would be good for everyone because we knew that if we won, with the Labour Party ideology, everybody would be fine.